Salzburg

My host family (for lack of a better term) bought me a rail pass for 25 euros which enables me to travel anywhere in Austria by train for free during the months of July, August and part of September.  So Saturday 8/15 I decided to put it to good use and jump on a train to Salzburg.  There are two parts to the ticket and I thought that I had both of them but discovered otherwise when I went to show them to the train ticket coordinator (again for lack of a better term).  His english wasn't so good and likewise my german so we could barely understand each other.  But finally I understood enough to know that it was a problem for me to be on the train without the other half of the ticket.  After a few minutes of useless arguing he said with a harsh accent that I could stay on the train but that he would have to take my ticket which meant that I couldn't use it more.  I'm sure it goes without saying but I was furious!  But unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it (barring punching the guy in the face and making a run for it which also would have been fruitless considering we were already on a moving train)  and you just can't reason with Europeans.  It wasn't the best start to my day trip but thank goodness the rest of it went pretty smoothly except that I had to buy my ticket back which cost almost 50 euros.  :(

The people of Salzburg are very proud of Mozart and the movie 'The Sound of Music.  There are statues and posters of both all over the city.  They are proud of Mozart because he was born there and they are proud of The Sound of Music because it was filmed there.    They even have a tour specific the movie where they take you to different scenes and settings that are shown in the movie. ( I was smart enough not to take the tour)  After a while of walking around and seeing all the posters and hearing all the music (do ra me blah blah blah....the hills are alive.......you are sixteen going seventeen da da da da da da) I pretty much wanted to throw up.  But despite the fact I was still able to see some amazing things.  Salzburg is a truly beautiful city surrounded by Austrian Alps with the Salzach river flowing right through the middle of it.  

History Lesson #...I don't know what number...is anyone counting?

Salzburg-  Salzburg was founded by Bishop Rupert, according to legend, who arrived with Benedictine monks.  The towns first cathedral was built by an the Irish Bishop Virgil.   The credit for the glory of Salzburg goes to three archbishops who ruled between 1587 and 1653: Wolf Dietrich, Marcus Sitticus, and Paris Lodron.    The most famous architect of the Austrian Baroque, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (mentioned in a previous blog) began his career in Salzburg.    My favorite attraction of the city was the Hohensalzburg Fortress.  It is a huge fortress/castle like thing that sits on the rocky peak of Festungsberg and overlooks the entire city.   It was built in the 11th centure during the wars between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy and was gradually extended.  It was served as a refuge for Salzburg's archbishops whenever they felt threatened.  

Lucerne

On my second free day, I decided to make another attempt at going to Lucerne.   But first I had to go back into Zurich to the train station there.    Upon my arrival at Zurich Hauptbahnhof I started to go upstairs to the main level where I would try again to purchase a ticket to Lucerne.  While I was on the escalator I noticed that the people in front of me were dressed very strangely.   Which isn't that weird in a big city but these people looked like they were getting an early start on Halloween.  I wanted to tap them on the shoulder and say "Excuse me, you do know it's only August right?"  As I was entertaining myself with all the one-liners I could pull on these people I let my eyes wander around a little bit.  Which only brought to my attention the fact that almost everybody in the train station was dressed extremely weird, leaving me, the self-entertaining queen of wit, the odd one out.  There were people dressed in just about every costume you could possibly imagine, (most of them inappropriate) and my personal favorite was the guy dressed as bugs bunny.  :)  When I finally got to the top end of the escalator it was only to discover that there was a major festival going on in the city with the main part being held at the train station (don't ask, I don't know why either) .   For anyone who might know anything about the Berlin Love Parade, this festival was very similar only smaller.  It's filled with a bunch of crazy liberal techno freaks who bring their crazy techno music and LOTS of beer and dress up for no apparant reason.   So naturally, knowing me, I couldn't get out of there quick enough.   This time my attempt to get my ticket went much smoother and I was finally on my way to the beautiful Lucerne.  

-Lucerne is the heartland of the Swiss Confederation and a central base for Swiss tourism.  It's easily the most beautiful town I've seen so far.  It is surrounded by crystal clear lakes and beautiful mountains.  The Kappellbrucke is the city's most famous symbol.  It is a covered wooden bridge that crosses the river.  It was built in 1333 and formed part of the city's original boundary but had to be renovated after a destructive fire in 1993.  

Zurich

Although the majority of the trip was a total bust, I did have a couple days to myself where I was able to do some wandering and exploring.  My first free day I went into Zurich.  The city is really nice but there is not much to see or do there.  I had pretty much covered all the bases by noon and I didn't need to be back until evening.  Up until noon I had wandered through Bahnhofstrasse which is Zurich's most famous shopping street, and I had seen the two most famous attractions, the Frau-Munster and Gross-Munster churches.  After looking through my maps and travel books (yes I know...super nerdy tourist) I discovered that I had pretty much done everything worth doing.  So I decided to go back to the train station and buy a ticket to Lucerne.  I had heard that it was very beautiful and it was only an hour away so I thought it would be perfect.  However, while waiting in line to get the ticket I was approached by an older man who kept trying to talk to me.  Now I, having taken after my dad in many ways, was being polite and talking back.  After all there is no harm in friendly conversation.  However the conversation started getting a little too friendly when he kept telling me that he liked the way I looked and that he would like to buy me a drink.   For anyone who is thinking..."ooo go Nicole"  Keep in mind that this man was easily in his 40s and I was wearing dirty sweats and a grungy t-shirt and was lucky to have found time to even run a comb through my hair that morning.  ( I didn't feel it necessary to dress up to wander around town by myself )  So there was no possible way that this man could have been interested in my 'good' looks.  Needless to say I was casually but frantically searching for an excuse to get the heck out of there knowing that if something were to happen, Liam Neeson probably wouldn't be willing to come to my rescue.   So being the smart and cunning person that I am I came up with a very crafty excuse.  To quote myself exactly, "Umm...yeah ok well I...have to go to the bathroom really bad...so it was nice meeting you...BYE!"    He responded, "well wait don't you want to get a ticket first?"  I thought about it for a mili-second, after-all I was next in line, but then I figured that if I were to buy my ticket before making my crafty escape to the ladies room, he would just overhear and 'conveniently' end up on the same train.  So I quickly responded with a "NOPE, I really have to go, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do you know?!!"  But before I could take off using my practiced power-walk, he speedily took a piece of paper and pen and gave me his number insisting that I call him.   Thinking it would make a great memory to laugh at in a year or two I took the paper and proceeded to the bathroom at the other end of the train station, all the while taking care that he wasn't following me.   On an unrelated note, when I finally reached the bathroom, I had to pay!!  (Switzerland takes any opportunity to rip you off!) Which was rather frustrating considering I didn't actually have to go.  Fearing that he might still be there creepin on everything that walked by, I opted out of going to Lucerne that day and instead walked to the edge of the city and rested in a park along the beautiful Zurich Lake and read a book.  :)

And now for a brief History Lesson of Zurich-

During medieval times, while the guilds ruled the city, the people of Zurich obtained a talent for hard work and accumulating wealth.  Zurich is now home to the worlds 4th largest stock exchange which opened in 1877 and today Swiss bankers have control over purse strings of many major international companies and organizations.   As I mentioned before, two of the main attractions are the Grossmunster and Fraumunster churches.  The Grossmunster rests on the east bank of the Limmat River, which flows right through the city.   It dominates the city with its profound structure.  In this church a man by the name of Ulrich Zwingli launched the reformation on the receptive burghers of Zurich in 1520.  There's not much to know about Fraumunster, which lies on the other side of the river, except that it looks kinda cool and is a really old church.  :)

Grossmunster

Train station

A view of the Grossmunster and Fraumunster churches over the Limmat River leading into Lake Zurich.  

Sick Kids, OCD, and a Break-In...oh my

Oh boy do I have a lot to catch up on so I'm just going to start with the overall trip to Switzerland.  

I could tell you that my trip to Switzerland was wonderful and amazing, and that's probably what you're expecting.  However, if I were to tell you what you were expecting I would be lying because in fact, the overall trip was terrible.   When we arrived at Tante Catherine's (Aunt Catherine's)  house just outside of Zurich, it was only to discover that Tante Catherine's house wasn't a house at all but instead a small apartment.  Which meant that for the next 10 days there would be 9 people squished into 3 rooms and all sharing 1 shower.   I was to share a room with Fanny and Flora while Isabelle and Matthias took the other guest room with Timon and Christoph.  But all that changed when Flora began throwing up everything she had eaten that day just before we were getting ready for bed.  She was followed closely by Fanny who came down with an awful cough and fever.   As bad as I felt for the poor girls, I didn't exactly want to share a room with them.  (can you blame me?)  And thank goodness I was rescued when Isabelle offered to sleep with them and suggested that I take the couch.   Although I was really excited to have the couch to myself free from sick children, it also meant that I had absolutely no privacy and that I would have to stay up as late as the adults (which is really late) and get up as early as the kids (RIDICULOUSLY EARLY)!!   On top of the "close quarters" issue Isabelle's sister, Catherine (pronounced Katrin), is OCD to the tenth power!  She freaked out over every teeny little thing.   She was constantly pushing a vacuum around everybody and cleaning up after every single person to the point of extreme rudeness.  Her whole world almost came crashing down when Timon got an ALMOST visible fingerprint on her perfectly clean refrigerator door.  Heaven forbid.  

After a couple days of no sleep and excessive cleaning we received a phone call from Isabelle's mom who was watching the house while we were gone.  She bore the wonderful news that the house had just been broken into.  She called us again later, after having called the police and stood by as they ran forensics tests, to tell us that all of Isabelle's jewelry and some of Timon's money had been stolen.  But the room that the stupid thieves had the most fun in was mine.  They stole all of my tithing money along with all of the money that I had been saving.   They also stole a ring of mine which is actually kind of funny because they'll be quite angry to discover that the ring is not real silver nor is the emerald real and it's really only worth 20 dollars or less.  You'd think that stealing would be enough to satisfy them but OOOH NO!  For some reason they felt it necessary to trash my room as well, throwing all of my clothes on the floor and emptying all my drawers out onto my bed, and scattering everything that was on my desk.  Nice guys those thieves.   So instead of being relaxed and trying to enjoy switzerland I was anxious and just wanted to get home before anybody could take anything else. 

We kept thinking that after a couple of days Fanny and Flora would get better.  Which was the case with Fanny but unfortunately not Flora.  She remained sick until just a couple nights before we came home.  And, sure enough considering the "close quarters" issue, Christoph had picked up what Fanny had and joined Flora in the sick room, which meant I remained on the couch for the duration of our stay.

The upside to the trip was that I was able to get some good quality time with Timon.  Him and I have been struggling lately and it was really good to break through the barrier a little.   We spent most of our time together playing hide and seek games throughout the apartment complex and neighborhood, and going for long walks often visiting a farm to see the cows, sheep, and eat apples from a wonderful apple tree.   One evening during one of our games, I was trying to be sneaky so that Timon couldn't find me, but was interrupted by a really old creeper guy with the majority of his teeth missing.  He kept mumbling the same thing to me over and over and the only word I could distinguish was 'gorka' which means cucumber.  As you can probably assume I was a little confused but eventually I figured out that he had a bunch of extra cucumbers he wanted to give away.  So after taking two and bringing them back to the 'house', I discovered that he had also given some to Timon and some to Joaquim (Catherine's husband).  It made for a good memory to see that we had all been reeled in by the same creeper old man with the result being an overload on cucumber.  :)

Despite all of Catherine's annoying and unfortunate OCD issues, she is a wonderful cook!  I'm literally salivating just at the thought of her cooking.  She made excellent desserts which included rasberry cheescake, zucchini chocolate cake (yeah yeah I know what you're thinking  but I ate it and admitted liking it before I knew there was zucchini in it) and also mouthwatering tiramisu.  ooohhhh sooo delicious.  She also made wonderful lasagna and heavenly schnitzel.  So all though I was not well rested at least we were all well fed.  :)  Another good quality about Catherine was that she married a great guy.  He is by far my favorite family member and I'll tell you why....He loves basketball.  He even keeps track of the NBA.   And, Joe you'll love this one, his favorite teams are the Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz.  It was so awesome to be able to finally talk to someone about a sport I'm actually interested in.

So I just decided that this post is entirely too long so I'll finish up real quick with a couple facts about Switzerland....  First of all, did you know that they're not actually part of the European Union?  So even though they are surrounded by EU countries on all sides, they refuse to join, forcing you to exchange your money from euros to swiss francs every time you enter the tiny country.   Another fun fact is that Switzerland is a quadrilingual country.  They speak 4 languages!!  On the Italian border they speak Italian, on the French border they speak French, and the they German and Austrian borders they speak, you guessed it, German.  The fourth language is called Romansch and is only spoken by a few valleys some where in the middle.